


The hidden purpose

by id_ten_it



Series: Inktober [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Extended Metaphors, Inktober, Inktober 2020, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28524300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/id_ten_it/pseuds/id_ten_it
Summary: A short domestic fic wherein the boys communicate their feelings relatively clearly, and there is much mutual improvement and a lot of hand holding, smiling soppily, and general fluff.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Series: Inktober [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2003845
Kudos: 34





	The hidden purpose

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Inktober prompt nr 6 (mask) from the alternative Inktober pompt list found [here](https://vkelleyart.tumblr.com/post/630712063324504064/we-are-doing-this-thing-yall-so-it-was), with thanks for the originator for doing the hard yards and providing a better alternative to the original.
> 
> Title from Rumi "Because the Beloved wants to know, unseen things become manifest. Hiding is the hidden purpose of creation."

Everyone knew Mycroft wore a mask, as thick and impenetrable as he could get it.  
Greg, on the other hand, was seen as the more open of the two. Myc always said that showed what a good mask he really wore. For some time, Greg hadn’t thought he even did wear one; he was so used to it that it had become part of him.  
“I know how you feel” his partner had smiled, sadly, “Despite my best attempts…”  
“You’re better than you give yourself credit for.”

  
Shocked at what he’d become, Greg had re-learnt how he liked to relax: spread into the kitchen to bake of a weekend; taken over the garage to pull apart his old Triumph (and if he got some help putting it back together years later, Myc was good enough not to comment); taken up running when the weather was fine. It was fun, a throwback to his early twenties when he still looked for hobbies and tried out new things on a whim. It was scary, too – Myc had already said he loved him, the good and the bits Greg didn’t like – even the bits Greg struggled to accept.  
But despite having told Myc about the cases he regretted, that had taken a bit of his soul or replaced it with some darkness he never could quite shake, Greg still worried that by changing his behaviour he’d change who he was, and by changing who he was he’d lose Myc’s love.

Dropping the mask made him feel vulnerable and naked.

“Would it help if I did the same?” Mycroft asked one night, when Greg returned from a group rubik's cube run along the embankment, flushed with the joy of raising money for a favoured charity and smelling of finish-line beer and exertion.  
“Hmm?” Greg dropped to the sofa with barely a concern for his possible dirt, which sign of comfort made Myc smile. “You mean try something different? But why? You’re great.”  
“So are you” the analyst pointed out, putting aside his papers – face down – and smiling warmly, “but you’re still open to change.”  
“Yeah cause I’m not happy with being who _she_ made me be, who work made me be.”  
Mycroft nodded, listening to the meaning rather than the words. “You want to be in charge of who you are. A deliberate choice.”  
“I…Yeah.” Greg huffed in amazement at his partner’s understanding, smiling shyly through exercise-pink cheeks and sweat-dampened grey locks. “That’s right. I wanna be who I wanna be.”  
“There could be a song in that” Mycroft quipped. They shared a warm smile. Mycroft turned a deep pink and held his gaze. Very quietly he murmured, “I think you’re the bravest man I know.”

  
Greg blushed then, tugging Mycroft closer, protesting a little, but the next time he was struggling the words came back to him and he stood tall and certain. It happened again and again. _The bravest man I know_ sounded through his head, engraved on his heart, masking his fear and anxiety. Greg carried the words as a talisman, a treasure, letting them be his prop when he couldn’t bare to be himself. Letting _the bravest man I know_ mask his frailties until he began to love the man under the words as much as the man who had given them did.

Now, masked or not, Greg feels invulnerable, unafraid, sure of himself and who he is.


End file.
